Exploring disorganized attachment style among Malay mothers in Malaysia: A study using the Attachment Style Interview

ABSTRACT

This article explores emerging themes involving disorganized attachment style among Malay Muslim mothers using the Attachment Style Interview (ASI). Analysis of the 18 mothers with disorganized attachment style (those with combined anxious and avoidant styles) utilized themes deemed important from the attachment research literature and selected based on a careful reading of the narrative cases. These include more extreme negative interpersonal experiences than found in other insecure attachment style descriptors, and included partner violence and related isolation/social exclusion. It also indicated more complex cognitive-affective disturbance including mixed or contradictory dependency patterns and both angry and fearful attitudes to others. We discuss the concept of disorganized attachment style in relation to abuse, social exclusion, and its implication for psychopathology, intervention, and treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment Style Interview
• depression
• disorganized attachment style
• Malays
• mental health
• vulnerable mothers

Acknowledgments

Ethical permission was granted by the Economic Planning Unit of Malaysia and the university ethics committee of Royal Holloway, University of London. The participants provided informed consent with a guarantee of confidentiality, anonymity, and security of storage of data.